Minichello v. U.S. Industries, Inc.
| Decision Date | 27 February 1985 |
| Docket Number | No. 83-3236,83-3236 |
| Citation | 756 F.2d 26 |
| Parties | 17 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 861, 1984-1985 O.S.H.D. ( 27,198 Ernest A. MINICHELLO; Mary Minichello, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. U.S. INDUSTRIES, INC., Defendant-Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit |
Thomas Mester, Komito, Nurenberg, Plevin, Jacobson, Heller & McCarthy Co., Harlan Gordon, Richard Alkire, Richard Demsey, Joel Levin (argued), Cleveland, Ohio, for plaintiffs-appellants.
Thomas Schick (argued), McNeal, Schick & Archibald, Cleveland, Ohio, for defendant-appellee.
Before JONES, Circuit Judge, and PECK and BROWN, Senior Circuit Judges.
This is a product liability case. It presents the question of whether it is error in such a case for a court to admit evidence that a product does not violate federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) standards, in light of the fact that Congress did not intend for OSHA standards to affect the standard of civil liability. Because we consider the admission of such evidence to have been prejudicial error, we reverse and remand for a new trial.
Plaintiff-Appellant Ernest Minichello worked as a tool and die maker for Ford Motor Company from 1963 to 1981. His suit concerns an injury suffered while working on a die. A die is used in shaping metal products. Part of a die maker's job is to test each die after making it. In this process, a machine called a "spotting press" is used in the Ford plant. The spotting press used by Minichello was manufactured by CMC Clearing, whose successor in interest, U.S. Industries, is the defendant-appellee.
The CMC Clearing spotting press consists of two parts, a platform called a sliding bolster plate and an overhead part called a ram. The die maker stands on the surface of the bolster plate as he secures the die to be tested. The plate measures eight feet by sixteen feet, and stands thirty-two inches (2'8"') off the factory floor. No guard rail surrounds the plate. The plate's surface, which is made of smooth steel, contains a series of grooves. The grooves are spaced six inches apart across the bolster plate. Each groove is about four inches deep and one inch wide. The die maker secures the bottom half of the die to the bolster plate, with the grooves serving to hold this half of the die in place. The die maker stands on the bolster plate as he attaches the top half of the die to the ram with a large wrench. After he secures the two halves of the die in their respective positions, the die maker leaves the bolster plate, and the ram descends, bringing the two parts of the die together.
On August 2, 1979, Minichello was at work on the spotting press. As he tried to secure the top part of the die he was working on, his wrench slipped and he lost his balance. He caught his foot in one of the plate's grooves and fell from the platform to the concrete factory floor. As a result of the fall, he suffered a facial laceration and a third-degree shoulder separation.
Minichello and his wife Mary filed suit against U.S. Industries in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, Eastern Division. Minichello sought damages for his injuries, asserting negligence, breach of express and implied warranties of merchantability, and strict liability in tort, as grounds for recovery, but at trial chose to proceed under the theories of strict liability in tort and breach of implied warranty only. Plaintiffs withdrew their claims under the theories of negligence and breach of express warranties and presented no evidence in connection therewith. Mrs. Minichello sought damages for the loss of her husband's services because of the injury. A jury trial was held which ended in a general verdict for defendant. The court entered judgment for the defendant and the Minichellos have appealed to this court.
Appellants urge a number of grounds for reversal. They argue, first, that it was error for the trial court to allow the jury to learn that the bolster plate's lack of a guardrail arguably did not violate OSHA standards. Appellants had presented the expert testimony of Dr. Vern Roberts, a licensed safety engineer. Dr. Roberts testified that the failure to place a guardrail around the bolster plate made the plate, in view of its height and its slick surface, unreasonably dangerous. On cross-examination, defendant's counsel questioned Dr. Roberts about a supposed variance between his opinion on the one hand and those of OSHA and of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), an industry group, on the other. In the course of this questioning, the defense brought before the jury the content of the OSHA regulation governing raised working surfaces, OSHA Safety & Health Standards Sec. 1910.23(c), which requires employers to guard surfaces four feet or more above the floor, without reference to lower surfaces. (The surface from which Minichello fell, of course, was less than three feet above the floor.) Counsel for the Minichellos objected to the questions on the OSHA regulations. Counsel for U.S. Industries responded by telling the judge, out of the jury's hearing, that Dr. Roberts had "expressed an opinion about this [bolster plate] being an unreasonable hazard and this regulation establishes otherwise." The court admitted the testimony saying that Dr. Roberts was "allowed to express his opinion, ... and ... as a result, the other side should be allowed to test his opinion." Appellant argues that the OSHA standards are irrelevant to the question of the platform's defectiveness, and that they could only have misled and confused the jury.
The Occupational Safety and Health Act, which provides the legislative grant of authority to OSHA, specifically states that it is not intended to affect the civil standard of liability. The Act states:
Nothing in this chapter shall be construed to supercede or in any manner affect any workmen's compensation law or to enlarge or diminish or affect in any other manner the common law or statutory rights, duties or liabilities of employers and employees under any law with respect to injuries, diseases or death of employees arising out of, or in the course of, employment.
29 U.S.C. Sec. 653(b)(4). To use OSHA regulations to establish whether a product is unreasonably dangerous is thus improper. If knowledge of the regulations leads the trier of fact to find a product defective, the effect is to impermissibly alter the civil standard of liability. If, on the other hand, knowledge of the regulations does not affect a result the trier of fact would have reached even without the knowledge, the regulations serve no purpose and their discussion is simply a waste of time. We do not mean to suggest that OSHA regulations can never be relevant in a product liability case, but OSHA regulations can never provide a basis for liability because Congress has specified that they should not.
OSHA regulations are not relevant to the issue of U.S. Industries' liability to the Minichellos for a further reason. OSHA...
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